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Pridestar: Rival bus company's allegations 'fabricated'

Pridestar CEO David Daly speaks during an interview at The Sun offices on Thursday. He said North Reading Transportation's proposal was not enough to service the Lowell bus contract. SUN / Rick Sobey

LOWELL -- Officials for Pridestar EMS Inc., saying a competitor's "defamatory and malicious" letters have sparked a major cloud of suspicion about the transportation company, are striking back at the rival busing firm -- North Reading Transportation Inc.

Pridestar is also considering a civil complaint, a cease-and-desist letter, seeking full damages for "fabricated and imagined" allegations from NRT.

In early July, NRT officials sent a letter to state Inspector General Glenn Cunha alleging numerous complaints about Pridestar's performance since it was awarded a contract to proved in-district special-education transportation for the Lowell Public Schools.

Pridestar has since issued its own letter to the inspector general, discussing the numerous "wholesale fabrications" that NRT claims about Pridestar.

The NRT-Pridestar dispute has been building for months after NRT was bypassed for the School Department's SPED transportation contract.

In a letter sent to Inspector General Cunha on Thursday, Pridestar's attorney Michael Gallagher termed NRT's complaints as "baseless accusations."

"... it (NRT) has been sending demonstrably untrue and defamatory letters first to Pridestar and later to the city in an apparent effort to undermine the contract between Pridestar and the city," Gallagher wrote.

PrideStar EMS, based in Lowell, won the special-education transportation contract last November for $9.

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7 million over three years. A month earlier, NRT had bid about $1.4 million less over the three-year period.

This contract controversy came in the wake of a 5-year-old student being left on a SP&R Transportation bus for five hours. The School Committee decided to terminate the SP&R special-education contract, and award it to PrideStar.

Special-education transportation contracts are exempt from the state's Chapter 30B bidding law, meaning the contract does not have to be awarded to the lowest bidder.

The School Committee voted for a more expensive contract months before the Lowell Public Schools faced a $2.5 million budget shortfall and slashed positions.

NRT's letter to the inspector general urges the state to give its opinion as soon as possible, claiming that a chaotic situation has ensued since Pridestar took over the contract in February. The School Committee will not take any action in connection with the Pridestar contract until Cunha weighs in, the letter states.

However, Gallagher emphasized that there's no "critical need" for action and there's no special-education transportation "chaos."

"Pridestar outfitted its extensive vehicular fleet with state-of-the-art technology and substantially revamped the prior provider's considerably outdated database," Gallagher wrote to the state. "In the remaining three months of the 2017-2018 school year, Pridestar professionally -- and safely -- undertook several thousand unique student transports.

"At no point did the School Department or the city advise Pridestar of any deficiency in its performance, never mind suggest that there was a 'chaotic situation,' " he added.

In addition to the contract going to the higher bidder, NRT lawyer Anthony Metaxas has stated that Pridestar had zero experience "providing bus transportation of pupils for any municipality, let alone a city the size of Lowell."

Metaxas repeated those claims about Pridestar this week.

"As an ambulance company, Pridestar may have been successful in transporting a handful of medically sensitive students who required ambulance transportation," Metaxas said in a statement. "It cannot be disputed, however, that Pridestar, as a company, had no prior experience transporting students by van or bus for any municipality."

In response, Gallagher said PrideStar's has extensive experience providing specialty transportation for behaviorally-challenged and medically-fragile students in Lawrence, Chelmsford, Tewksbury, Billerica, Burlington, and Woburn. He said within those districts, PrideStar transports students to six special needs schools, all of which have written reference letters in support of PrideStar's preformance.

Gallagher said NRT's claims are "demonstrably false."

Furthermore, Gallagher slammed NRT's initial proposal, saying it would have been impossible to service Lowell's 950 SPED students with the company's 30-bus proposal. He said NRT's one-page proposal lacked details and specifics. The School Committee would have been "irresponsible" to award the contract to NRT over PrideStar's comprehensive plan, Gallagher said.

Pridestar's proposal called for a daily fleet of 50 vehicles. Since February, Pridestar has used on average 31 mini-buses, 13 vans and five wheelchair vans each day. About 950 students are being transported daily on 300 unique routes.

Safety technology -- the Child Check-Mate System -- was a central point of Pridestar's bid for the contract. Drivers must complete a series of checks which helps to prevent leaving a student behind on a bus undetected.

NRT's proposal also included these safety features.

David Daly, owner of The Daly Group, is the CEO of Pridestar. He also emphasized that NRT's proposal was not enough to service the contract.

"It'd be physically and logistically impossible to service this contract with 30 vehicles," said Daly, noting that each bus, by state law, can hold a maximum of 18 students.

As a result, the School Committee chose Pridestar's proposal, he said.

Daly said he recently received a call from a local bank official, who was concerned about the allegations claimed by NRT.

"There's a cloud over our head because of these defamatory and malicious charges," Daly said. "It's very frustrating. We didn't do anything wrong."

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